Computed tomography (CT) imaging systems have become ubiquitous in the fields of medical diagnostics and treatment. CT systems typically include an X-ray source, such as a conventional X-ray tube, positioned in a diametrically opposed location from a detector. The source and detector rotate on a gantry, and the source produces beams of X-ray radiation that are directed through a subject of interest and impact the detector on the opposite side of the gantry. The emitted radiation is attenuated by features and structures of the subject, and the transmitted radiation is measured by the detector. Such CT systems use acquired data to reconstruct images of internal features of a variety of subjects, including human and animal patients in a medical diagnostic context, internal configurations and components of parts and parcels, and so forth.
Conventional CT systems rotate at increasingly high speeds to improve the resolution of the resulting reconstructed images. Such high speeds have increased the quantity of image data that is acquired during the CT scan. However, these high speed CT systems utilize slip rings to transfer data from the rotating gantry to permanent disk drives (or other memory circuits) located in a stationary computer. Unfortunately, such slip rings are often costly and unreliable. Moreover, as the quality of data to be transferred increases (with increased rotational speed, increased coverage, etc.), the ability to transmit data through the slip rings becomes a bottleneck in the acquisition and processing of image data. Accordingly, there exists a need for improved CT systems that reduce the cost and unreliability of the data transfer from the rotating gantry to the stationary computer.